


the runaround

by meikuree (rillarev)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ball, Canon Universe, Casual Sex, F/F, Flirting, Laughter During Sex, Table Sex, and then dealing with the fallout & implications after, the usual thing of them having sex within 10 minutes of meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillarev/pseuds/meikuree
Summary: Perhaps it’s the way the woman has been gazing with a bored look at everything around her. Perhaps it’s the way she defiantly bites her bottom lip while looking right at Pieck, with a cunning smile that says: I want you to see this.Pieck meets Yelena for the first time, at a ball.Written for Snktober 2020's Day 24 prompt "Beginnings/Endings".
Relationships: Pieck/Yelena (Shingeki no Kyojin)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 119
Collections: SNKTOBER Month 2020





	the runaround

**Author's Note:**

> title from "the runaround" by sufjan stevens, purely because i was listening to it while writing.

The clock ticks nine in the night.

The scene on the floor lurches into full swing, as the last of the ball attendants stream in. Pieck’s perched herself beside a bannister, observing the room and content to remain inconspicuous. The sound of strident orchestral music reverberates around the room. She watches the nouveau rich among the Marleyans try their hand at dancing in the centre of the room, encouraged by decadent libations with highfalutin names.

Something about this particular soirée makes Pieck feel a little more reckless than usual. She’s not here for business, not strictly. Balls like this have become more frequent in the past few months, as Marley’s economy sputters forth with the spoils from skirmishes won and areas conquered. Pieck has never been one to delight in what they celebrate— she considers them to be utterly reprehensible, frankly, and more of a means to an end for staying attuned to what’s happening within high society— but she has come to appreciate the opportunities to get some fresh air beyond the barracks. She has her strings that allow her to come in through unofficial means and slink out when she gets tired.

But there’s something lacking here that makes her attention wane. All the requisite elements are present, like food and entertainment and a crowd, but there’s no life to the people. She's only heard irrelevant gossip and news so far. Perhaps she’d exhausted all novelty to be found here earlier, when she was eating the canapés and admiring some clams that opened like butterflies at the dinner selection. 

She wanders around, strangely weightless in the airy garment of her black evening dress, searching for some outlet for her disinterest.

She spots another woman some way off into the distance. It’s hard not to, indeed, given that she sticks out like a sore thumb with her great height. Said woman is standing tall and apart from the labyrinthine circles of conversation snaking around the ballroom, rebuffing the crowd and stationing herself in her own corner instead. A look of tedium is etched into her face. The imposing light from the chandelier casts an almost-halo upon her, like a lonely spotlight on her straw-colored hair and sharp fringe. There’s a half-filled wineglass grasped in her hands, the wine inside segueing into a velvet swirl as she gives it a listless swivel.

She can empathise with her, Pieck thinks. The inevitable superficiality of these events leaves a lot to be desired.

Suddenly, she looks up. As she tilts her head up, she makes eye contact with Pieck, and there’s something like a flicker of mutual understanding there. 

Perhaps it’s the way the woman has been gazing with a bored look at everything around her. Perhaps it has to do with the way she defiantly bites her bottom lip while looking right at Pieck, with a cunning smile that says: _I want you to see this._

Then it’s back to the present, the noise of the bustling crowd wreathing around herself. In a snap, something like naked interest or desire compels her forward— _there's little to lose,_ and _why not?_ are what she’s mainly thinking now, shrugging off the instinct to premeditate every decision— and she takes her next step. Before they lose each other to the sea of people between them, Pieck gives the woman in the distance a meaningful nod.

The mystery woman in question smirks in response. It lights up her face for the first time since Pieck began watching her. She takes a lengthy, decadent sip from her wineglass, eyes boring into Pieck’s all the while. Pieck decides that, yes, she will take that as an affirmation. She ducks into the nearest alcove, finding her way to a side exit hidden there. Minutes later, the tall woman emerges, the sound of her brogues clacking audible as she walks up to Pieck. 

“Greetings,” she says to Pieck.

Up close, she looks even more riveting. Pieck decides she likes her immediately. There’s something unassuming yet striking about the woman, an undercurrent of self-possession and sharpness running underneath her disinterested demeanor earlier. Like a king’s most prized and dangerous page is perhaps the analogy she would use. She's smartly adorned too, in a tailored blazer that shows off her broad shoulders. That doesn’t hurt. She’s ditched her wineglass somewhere, evidently aware that they won’t need it soon where they’re going. Pieck’s body warms from something that is not the wine. 

It doesn’t take much more conversation for them to get down to business. She’s bored. Pieck wants to get out. The night is young, or as young as it can be under the watchful eye of Marley. It’s simple enough, truly. She leads both of them out with the aim of bringing her back to her room in the barracks.

* * *

They don’t make it back to her room. The woman walking beside her— Yelena, she’s called, Pieck learns— curls a hand around her waist at one point, after which Pieck decides to move in favour of escaping into the nearest room possible. 

They eventually come upon a suitably disused supply room within some far-flung corner of the building. Yelena enters first with the look of a determined gladiator, then locks the door behind Pieck as she follows her in. The moment it clicks, she wastes no time backing Pieck against a table and getting the both of them entangled. Yelena leans down— or rather, kneel downs on the ground, which she has to do with how tall she is— to press a heated kiss to the crook of her neck. The motion makes Pieck sigh eagerly. She instinctively raises her hands to hold onto Yelena’s back and steady herself.

Without any preamble, Yelena suddenly lifts her up to lay her down, spread-eagled, on the table, seemingly without breaking a sweat. An inarticulate thrill rises up Pieck’s spine in response. The biting coldness of the table against her skin makes her wince a little, but Yelena is soon taking off her blazer and padding it underneath her. She bends over her, resting her elbows beside Pieck’s torso on the table surface, and dips her head to kiss her again, this time on the lips. 

They continue kissing as Pieck, eyes closed, moves to sit up straight. Yelena parts for a moment to work at undoing the clasps at the back of her dress, but frustration soon outwins enthusiasm as she fumbles with the tricky criss-crossing pattern.

“Here, I’ll help,” Pieck offers. She reaches back and deftly undoes the remaining ties, then pulls the zip the rest of the way down. 

The dress comes halfway off her, and suddenly the rest of it doesn’t seem as important any more. Yelena exhales slowly and pauses to take in the expanse of fawn-coloured skin that’s been revealed before her. It’s Pieck’s turn to bite her lip this time. The concentrated look Yelena is giving her makes her dizzy with want. Before she loses her wits entirely, she undoes a trail of buttons down her collared shirt and slips the white fabric off her shoulders to even things out between the both of them.

They fall almost naturally into each other after that. Yelena doesn’t bother with the lower half of Pieck’s dress. It’s just as well, since Pieck has to walk back with her clothes on somehow eventually. She skims her mouth on Pieck’s collarbones and unclasps Pieck’s bra at the same time with ease. _That_ one she’s had practice with. She kisses her breasts and takes a nipple into her mouth, laving at it with deft strokes of her tongue. Pieck immediately arches her back towards her and flexes a hand in the short hairs at the back of Yelena’s head. It’s hard to think like this, with the sensation and sound of Yelena touching her burning up her entire body.

She wonders what Yelena has in store for her. She’ll find out soon enough if she keeps playing along with her. Yelena moves down, pace unhurried but not overly slow either, and curls both her warm hands around the curve of Pieck’s waist. Pieck’s body seizes up instantly with laughter that she tries to stifle with a hand to her mouth.

“You’re ticklish,” Yelena remarks with wonder, glancing up at her for a moment. She further explores the area around her hips, cunningly trying to see which parts of her will elicit a similar reaction.

Pieck struggles to speak through her giggles. “Yeah,” she bites out between huffs of laughter rippling through her body, “And you aren’t? But that's not my most sensitive spot, so you might want to move—“

Yelena chooses that moment to press a wet kiss to the zenith of her lower abdomen, where her groin just about begins. Pieck’s voice turns into a full-blown moan instead and she fails to complete her sentence.

“You were saying?” Yelena hums against her skin, in a tone of smug satisfaction. Pieck’s caught up too much in the ardently distracting things she’s doing with her mouth to attempt a glare, or any sort of response.

“Ah,” she cries out breathily, as Yelena begins to grip her hips and inundate the soft sensitive flesh of her lower abdomen with kisses. She cradles her hand to the back of Yelena’s head again, urging her on gently. Yelena decides not to tease her any further. She pares back just briefly to take in the sight of Pieck— hair slightly mussed, a vivid blush adorning her upper body, chest heaving with breathlessness— and not a moment longer. 

Her hands wander up Pieck’s thighs as she hikes the rest of her dress up. She efficiently divests Pieck of her remaining underwear and then moves in closer. She first licks a wet stripe up the inside of Pieck’s thighs, which shiver a little in response. Her fingers find their mark quickly and slip in with ease into sheer wetness; Pieck has long been aching for her by this point. Pieck lets out a sharp gasp and her head falls back, eyes almost fluttering close.

She calls on the dregs of her willpower to shift to rest her weight on her elbows then, propping herself up at just enough an angle to glimpse what Yelena is doing. She’s content to watch Yelena take the lead. There’s something intoxicating about watching an imposing, handsome woman getting on her knees for her, trying to divine the rhythm and movements that will push her over the edge. Yelena experiments a little to figure out what Pieck likes: she first works her mouth between her legs, tongue drawing tentative circles around her clit. The wet warmth of its press against her feels good, and Pieck clenches her thighs gently in response. She sighs quietly, a lovely sound that dances in the air.

Then Yelena slides two fingers into her while keeping her mouth on her, and Pieck outright sees stars. She moans and reflexively bucks her hips up into her mouth, seeking friction. The smirk plastered across Yelena’s face thereafter is felt against her skin more than it is seen; Pieck’s fallen back again, unable to stay upright, while her hands fist themselves in the fabric of Yelena’s blazer in search of futile purchase. 

A brainwave occurs to Yelena then. She rises from where she was situated between Pieck’s legs and arranges herself so that one of her hands is able to thumb at her clit while thrusting it’s fingers into her. Her mouth finds its new target at last upon her breasts; she rolls her tongue over a nipple, an overwhelming preponderance of heat gathered at the tip of it, and Pieck lets out a needy whimper from the back of her throat. She can feel a fierce blush appearing on her face.

“Keep doing that,” she gasps, as her hips stutter upwards. Yelena stills for a second, taking in what Pieck just said, then dips her head again with an intense look: she doesn't need to be told twice.

Yelena angles her fingers inside her so they hit her just right, and quickly enough the sensation of her touching Pieck in all the right spots overwhelms her. She soon becomes intimately acquainted with just how vocal Pieck can be, and takes it all in amused stride.

(“I’d feel proud if someone complains about the noise,” she comments wryly as Pieck reddens.)

At one point Yelena pauses briefly to place a hand under Pieck’s chin, and Pieck tilts her head up to look at her at her urging. Then Yelena moves back down again to continue her ministrations, watching her with a predatory glint in her eye, and they don't take their eyes off each other again after that. It doesn't take long for Yelena to coax an orgasm out of her thereafter. Every push of her wiry fingers into her earns her a sharp stroke of pleasure that flares in the pit of her abdomen, and the intensity soon builds until she can hold on no longer. She comes with shuddering breaths and a loud moan that she barely manages to muffle, back arching off the table into Yelena’s warm body. 

They both catch their breaths for a few seconds after that. Pieck slowly wipes away the few beads of sweat gathered at the back of her neck with her hand. When her breathing evens somewhat, she sits up again. Yelena is kneeling on the floor, still, a slightly unfocused look in her eyes as she watches Pieck. Pieck flicks her midnight hair over her shoulder and beams at Yelena, unembarrassed despite her state of half-undress. 

Yelena suddenly twitches as though she’s just remembered something, and she moves to withdraw her hand— but Pieck stops her. Without breaking her gaze on Yelena, she draws Yelena’s hand from between her legs and captures her fingers in her mouth to suck them clean. She doesn't miss the way Yelena sucks in a breath.

“Getting you going?” she teases.

Yelena snorts. She grazes the back of her hand against her mouth. “What did you say your name was again?” she asks.

“Rose Palermo,” Pieck lies with a confident flourish.

“Well then,” Yelena says with a skeptical raise of her eyebrows, “I must say you look remarkably familiar, Miss Rose, now that we’ve met.” 

Pieck frowns. “Go on…?”

Yelena takes this as a cue to lean in so close that her face is only a hair’s inch away from Pieck’s. “I’m certain I’ve seen you a few times on military grounds, Miss Rose. But that’s not your name, is it? Should I be calling you Pieck Finger?”

 _Shit,_ Pieck thinks. “You’re sharp,” she responds. “How did you know?”

Yelena parts from her and shrugs with a proud smile. “Generally, you’d make sure to take your armband off before masquerading around with a Marleyan name.”

Pieck can't even argue with that. It’s true. In her defense, old habits die hard. Now her first concern is getting Yelena to shut up about this the moment they leave the room. But she pauses first to calm down and call up what she knows about her. The identity of the woman before her has been silently dawning upon her for a while. She’s seen her a few times in the past, she remembers now. 

“I know you too,” Pieck counters, regaining confidence. “From the 54th, aren’t you?” When Yelena doesn’t reply, she continues, knowing she’s right. “I’ve seen you at the firing range. You're good with a gun, I have to say.

“Looks like I've a fan,” Yelena comments drily. But underneath that she’s impressed, Pieck can tell.

Pieck simply returns a smile, unnerved. “You're quite an intriguing character.”

“As are you, Miss Pieck.” She raises an eyebrow.

“Pieck’s fine,” she says, resisting the mild urge to roll her eyes. _You’ve just bedded me, for God’s sake._ She stretches herself out along the table, trying to diffuse the tension in the air. “I assume you’re not going to tell anyone in the barracks about this or, god forbid, your superiors.”

Yelena scoffs. “What, do you take me for a fool? Of course not.”

That makes Pieck chortle a little. She taps her fingers rhythmically on the table. “Just making sure we’re on the same page,” she clarifies, “we both know that I'm not the only one who’d get into trouble.” She punctuates the insinuation with a threatening smile that Yelena’s sure to see.

The military takes a hard stance on fraternizing within its lines. The trick is simply, as usual, not to get caught. Which was precisely why she wanted to run under a false name this night. On the other hand, that’s a matter she needs Yelena’s cooperation in.

Though perhaps she can already count on her, if she didn’t object to her being Eldian despite noticing it. She has far more to lose from ratting them out than Pieck does, anyway. It’d be a stiff verbal warning for Pieck, versus a release from the military for her, if it comes down to that. And there are simpler deterrents for a Marleyan like her— like social stigma, she recalls with wryness. She’s not too worried at this point. 

“Oh, I’m well aware,” she hears Yelena reply. “I have discretion, don’t you worry.”

“And you’re not going to tell your friends? Boast about it?” Pieck says as she studies her own hands.

Again, a scoff. “No.”

Clipped words, but a full answer nonetheless.

Satisfied, Pieck turns to face her again. That affirmation will do for now. She bridges what little distance remains between them, and cups a hand around Yelena’s jaw. With a gentleness that surprises even herself, she thumbs at the corner of her lips, leisurely drawing out the friction between them from before and whetting it through her touch. It’s as if a switch has been flipped, and Pieck finds herself back to basking in the magnetism of Yelena’s presence, savouring this strange thing between the two of them. 

But first, a question. “Did you single me out back there?” _Just because I’m someone with a name?_

Yelena gives an amused snort. “No, believe it or not.” She wraps a hand around the one Pieck has cradled around her face. She remembers how those same hands felt on her earlier. “Your own charming, pseudonym-using self led me here.”

“That’s good,” Pieck murmurs, “I’m not anyone special, you’ll quickly realise.” The statement is part deliberate irony and part circumspect self-opinion.

For some reason, that makes Yelena turn her head to laugh into Pieck’s palm; Pieck feels the vibrations travel up to the tips of her fingers. She’s soon capturing Pieck’s hand in hers, manipulating it until she’s kissing her cool knuckles. A quiet thrill surges forth in Pieck’s hands at the contact, though she tamps it down.

“Modest. I like that. Why don’t we be friends?”

The expression on Pieck’s face gently changes. She regards Yelena with a mix of curiosity and not-misplaced vigilance. The scene would resemble a knight ceding unquestioning fealty to a stately princess, were Yelena not wearing a charming yet obviously haughty grin. And were they not both still half-naked from something much more involved. 

Pieck thinks: she cannot help but feel that they are playing a conversational game of cat-and-mouse, ducking around changing rules with every line, but she does know she finds the woman interesting enough so far. She would make for a good eye to keep on the ground in the military, to boot. The only resource Pieck has ever had are her friends and friendly relations and all the strings of influence she can tug at. One more person wouldn’t hurt to be let into her orbit.

She does want to know the woman before her better, besides. It’s as simple as that.

“Sure,” Pieck says after a while, expression unreadable, though she’s still convivial. “You’ve certainly been friendly enough.” 

This pleases Yelena; she moves in to kiss her on the lips. Pieck reciprocates, gently. She sighs into her mouth, the warm breath tickling both their cheeks. She wraps a hand at the back of Yelena’s head again to draw her in, intending to finish this up.

They don’t say much more before Pieck wraps a hand around the lithe flesh of Yelena’s hips, resolving to return the favour from earlier. But Yelena does move to whisper something into the shell of her ear; and Pieck, eyes closed and pulse jumping in her ears, receives it with silent assent.

“This is going to be the start of a beautiful partnership between you and I, don’t you think?”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> feedback/comments highly appreciated. it motivates me to write.


End file.
